“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them, every day begin the task anew.” ~St. Francis de Sales

“Without your wounds where would your power be?…The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve.” ~Thornton Wilder, The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder

“The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished….He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished.” ~St Francis de Sales

As I rise with the dawn, I drink in the morning. I taste the goodness of your creation and smell the crispness of new beginnings. I sense you beside me, my good shepherd watching over me as I care for the farm. I whistle a tune of praise as I go about my work. I feel blessed to walk in the long lived rhythms of sowing, feeding and reaping. Fill me anew today Lord with your Spirit. Give me strength and health when I feel tired or weary. I release my anxious thoughts to you, knowing that you hear my prayer. Please bless my farm, my home, my family. Please bless the work of my hands. Please remind me each morning To give thanks to you anew, my Lord and Savior. Amen.

St. Isidore the Farmer, pray for us.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, whose beloved Son didst share and enjoy the blessings of an earthly home in Nazareth: hear our prayers for mothers everywhere, that they may grow in Christian love and knowledge; pour down on them all the riches of thy grace that they may reflect the true and pure love of God to their children and families; to the honor and glory of thy Holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today marks the one hundredth anniversary of Our Lady’s first appearance at Fatima.

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I beg pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love You. … Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary, pray for us. Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us. Mary, Our Loving Mother, pray for us. Amen

We do not worship a creature. Far be the thought! For such an error belongs to heathens and Arians. But we worship the Lord of Creation, Incarnate, the Word of God. For if the flesh also is a part of the created world, yet it has become God’s body. And we neither divide the body, being such, from the Word, and worship it by itself, nor when we wish to worship the Word do we set Him far apart from the Flesh, but knowing . . . that “the Word was made flesh” (Jn 1:14) we recognize Him as God also, after having come in the flesh. ~St. Athanasius

“And I pray Thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the foundation of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.” ~Venerable Bede (672AD-735AD)